Paying rest home fees – this is something most of us prefer not to think about and definitely not to do!
If you meet the asset and income tests, it’s possible you might get Work and Income New Zealand (WINZ) to pay your rest home fees – but those figures are quite tight. For example, if you have over the prescribed figure in “assets” then you will have to use up your own money first before WINZ will pay. There are some special rules about what is treated as an asset (or not) and our Life Law team can talk you through that process.
But there is some good news – the limits have gone up (a little bit!). So instead of $256,554 the threshold for assets is now $273,628. If you have a partner that is not going into long-term care, you can choose for the value of your house and car to be excluded from the asset test. If you choose this option, the threshold for other assets is $149,845 which is also up slightly. Also, in the five years before applying (for the subsidy) one can now gift $7,500 per year (previously only $7,000). These changes might not seem substantial, but for those people who are close to the limits or are likely to go into care soon, this does make a difference.
Our Life Law team gets involved at all stages of the journey towards rest home and protecting your assets. This “journey” starts with people who form family trusts in their 30's and 40's, who will have enough time to gift their big assets to a related trust. Under present rules some gifting to trusts is still acceptable – so it does help a lot, to start really early. Later in life, perhaps when we meet with clients whose health is declining, (maybe we are reviewing their EPAs), we will talk about ongoing gifting of smaller amounts; and later on, we help our clients in filling in the difficult forms to apply for the subsidy. We are involved at all stages of that journey, and we know what works and what won’t!
